


Forgiveness, Trust, and So Much More

by Psycada



Category: Dororo (2019), Dororo (Anime)
Genre: Big angst but only for a bit, Comfort, I'm sappy and I love Jukai a whole lot what can I say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 20:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17925662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psycada/pseuds/Psycada
Summary: Jukai was neither prepared for raising a child or experiencing all the emotions that came with it. But hell, if he wasn't going to try.





	Forgiveness, Trust, and So Much More

“It can’t be… alive?”

Jukai held the damp bundle in his arms, so many feelings rushing through his blood at once. An apprehensive hand slowly came closer to tuck away the cloth- cotton, though much too fine to be anywhere from here- to reveal the mouth of the “child”. It was moving, ever so slightly. Desperately trying to find milk to feed itself, even after whatever could have birthed such a thing had abandoned it. Its mouth found the tip of his finger, instinctively suckling the lack of any nutrition.

And suddenly, the fact that it was trying to live, that it  _ wanted  _ to survive, was so beautiful, so precious to him. That something so pitiful had the will to live in a world like this. How could he have even thought of not doing so, when something like this hadn’t even considered it?

“You want to live?”

A sort of madness gripped him. Thoughts of building a series of prosthetics for this child, down to articulated fingers, raising it as his own, all flood in at once. It wanted to survive, right? He would make sure of it.  _ He _ had survived for a reason. This was it, this was why,  _ surely _ , why the world had allowed him to keep living. He felt tears build up and run down his face, the beauty of it all forcing him to. 

But it scared him, he started to realize, as he walked back to his home- a skinless, limbless child, floated to him on a boat. Where had it come from? What could have possibly birthed something like this? Yet somehow, he kept walking, kept clutching the baby close to him, kept imagining himself as a father. Fears kept giving way to paternal thoughts. All the way back to the medical hut, that image just struck him. Father? He took care of patients, yes, but he hadn’t taken care of any for  _ that  _ long.

Except for one.

He forced the thought out of his mind as he reached the doorway. He couldn’t let that consume him at the moment. There was a soul to take care of. 

Carefully setting the baby down, he watched with fascination as it crawled, in a way. The cloth wrapped around it protected it from the rough wood, Jukai already assuming he’d have to keep that tied around it until he found a better substitute for skin. And as he watched, the baby seemed to wiggle its way to the leftover bowl of fish, shoving its head in. 

“Ah, no, you can’t eat that just yet,” Jukai slid the bowl away, taking it to the backroom where everything not related to his work was shoved. There would be gruel, a far more simpler food, back here. Even with its lack of sense the child followed him- or at least, did its absolute best. He gave a chuckle as he had to step over it and replaced his bowl of fish with one of gruel. It was honestly lucky he had some ready, as the surrounding villagers often supplied him with enough vegetables to keep him afloat. Slipping out from the piles of carving tools and other unrelated junk was a slight challenge, now that he had to keep from stepping something far more precious. 

As he set the bowl down at his work table and looked up he was suddenly met what he had nearly forgotten- a wooden leg, worn from years of use, just big enough for a young adult.

Everything suddenly felt downhill.

Memories of his apprentice began flooding back, the untouched and abandoned leg being an all too soon and new reminder of his past. He glared at it, feeling a sickly mixture of self-loathing and anger ring through him. The sheer disgust directed at himself felt dizzying, bubbling over throughout his soul. How could he let this happen? How could he do  _ that  _ and expect any kind of forgiveness? What made him think people could forget that Jukai clenched his fist, nearly shaking with the built up emotion. Whilst in his down spiral of hatred some squirming, fleshy creature started wriggling onto his foot, and in fear he instinctively kicked the offending thing away, only then taking a moment to identify what crept upon him.

The child, the child,

The child was now a shaking lump on the floor. 

Jukai immediately toppled, knees crashing to the floor as he realized what he had done. Not again, please. He wanted to communicate some apology, reaching his hand out, but the baby shirked away from him. He was sorry, he was so, so sorry. He could almost swear he can feel it, the fear he had caused. All the pain and abandonment a child could experience in such a short time, all pressing into him. 

What had he done? What had he done?

He backed away and stumbled into a sitting position besides the work table, reeling in this emotional whirlpool. Horrible. He was horrible, that was what he was. To think he could restart his life with a new purpose. What new purpose? The world couldn’t possibly care if he lived or died. 

(Though with that logic, it meant the world didn’t care if he had killed all those people, and  _ he _ certainly cared.)

Time passed, though Jukai didn’t keep track. The gruel was most certainly cold at this point, as well as the air outside. He didn’t know how long he had sat there, eyes glazing over as he stared into the floor.

He felt a movement next to him, and rather than immediately reacting he froze, head just barely turning enough for him to see the baby. It had ran up against his hand- so much smaller than him- nuzzling into his palm. He waited, perhaps for it to realize where it had ended up crawling, or perhaps for himself to move. Yet still it insisted at nudging his hand, before looking up at him. And it  _ was _ looking at him, he felt, despite its eyeless skull. Again, it asked him, some undeniable question, yet something Jukai couldn’t grasp. At one point it tried to crawl onto his folded lap, Jukai having to catch it before it ended up rolling off. 

He was holding it now, and it wouldn’t squirm away. Simply looked up at him again, quietly observing. 

How, he wondered, could something having so little try this much? 

After what he did, how could something so hurt forgive him?

Carefully, so carefully, he cupped his hands around the baby and ran one along the back of its head, lifting it up to his chest. Somehow, he didn’t mind the blood getting on his hands. He just wanted the child to know it was being cared for, that something in this world had bothered to love it. Love it? Yes, he decided, he loved it. For its will to survive and keep surviving. He loved it.

He could worry about that later, though- food, nourishment, was of an almost forgotten priority here. Setting the bowl to the baby’s mouth he found it did indeed have the ability to eat, the sense of relief seemingly shared between them. Within minutes the bowl was emptied and the child was more than satisfied, head lolling into Jukai’s chest. Sleeping, perhaps? It needed rest, he supposed, especially after the events of today. The poor thing, only getting to rest when it had just been born barely moments ago. 

He wondered, for the briefest moment, if it would even live through the night. Something told him, somehow, that wasn’t going to happen. That this child would refuse to die so easily. But in human paranoia he watched the baby, hugged against him, for signs of life. How its chest (or rather, simply its body) would still rise with breath. How he could just  _ barely  _ feel, perhaps only in his imagination, a heartbeat against his own. 

Thoughts of prosthetics began to trickle into his mind again. Limbs, certainly, to help it move about. Something to cover the exposed tissue and muscle, unless some kind of magic happened to protect against that. For now, though, even babies with skin couldn’t walk. So he’d make limbs later, when they could actually be used. 

At one point he finally got up from the work table to make himself comfortable at the futon. And by “making himself comfortable” he meant literally making sure the baby was comfortable on him, taking an agonizingly long amount of time to shove the futon against a wall and lay himself against it so the child, still being held, would be in decent position. Only then did he let himself finally relax, even if his back was going to be stiff from this tomorrow. 

He could stand that much if this child was willing to put up with tonight. 

This child. His child.  _ His _ child. 

Father, for once, felt like a correct title for him.


End file.
